Harry Hurst

Harry Hurst was a soldier in the English Army during the Italian War of 1542-46.

Biography
Harry Hurst was originally a farmhand from northern England, and he was conscripted into the English Army during the Italian War of 1542-46. In 1543, he befriended fellow soldier Richard Leland during training, congratulating him on a well-placed musket shot against a French dummy. During the Siege of Boulogne, he served as a sapper, and Leland gave him half of his rations, knowing that Hurst and the other sappers were suffering more than the snipers. He succeeded in bringing down the city walls, and he left a flower and a helmet on Leland's grave after Leland was shot in the throat by a crossbow bolt near the end of the battle.